Writing International Legal History during the Long Nineteenth Century:
Lawyers as Global Historians 1750 -1900
Monday, November 14th, 2016 4:00PM–6:00PM
Approaches to Global History Seminar – Profs Bose and Maier
LILIANA OBREGÓN
Santo Domingo Visiting Scholar Fall 2016, DRCLAS;
WIGH Visiting Fellow Spring 2017;
Associate Professor, University of Los Andes Law School, Colombia
[email protected]
Note: The paper you will find at the end is a first draft sample chapter of the
book I am writing As an introduction, .I have included a published article which
summarizes my book project and will allow you to understand the relation of this
chapter to the general project. I am interested in looking at how lawyers wrote
global history in the nineteenth century in accordance to their particular locations
and political, social, economic context. During my introduction, I will provide a
brief overview of the chapter and the methodological challenges faced in writing
this book . I have also provided a few questions at the end of the chapter which
addresses what I am interested in exploring further.
( in the peer-reviewed published and on-line journal:
Monde(s) histoire, espaces, relations. Special edition volume 7 "Profession, juristes internationalistes?",
edited by Dzovinar Kévonian & Phillippe Rygiel, http://www.monde-s.com/, Presses Universitaires de Rennes,
May 2015)
Writing International Legal History: An Overview
reckon, the weakness of the objection is easily
exposed. Now, at the beginning of the twentieth
century, the idea is still generally accepted that
war is the true arbiter of disputes between
nations, just as formerly on the continent
of Europe, and even now amongst primitive
peoples, where the process of organization is
still in its first stages, the view is general that
as a matter of domestic law private war and
trial by combat determine by their outcome
whether or nota cause is just, and establish the
axiom that might is right ... The notion of...war
rests...on a false foundation. It must be driven
out by the aid of reason. It must be prevented
from being put into practice by appealing to the
idea of international tribunals, by advocating
diplomatie intercourse and arbitration, and,
finally, by insisting upon the establishment of
a permanent court of justice. Let us be active,
patient and persistent".35
ln relation to the expanding global sphere in
the midst of internai strife, the nineteenth
century lawyers who wrote history of the law
of nations or international law prioritized
their concerns over the consolidation of their
state, the development of national law, and
the protection of their government. Though
they believed in telling a history documented
with proper sources, their purpose was not
academic but rather to correct a present
injustice, insert their state into a better
position in contemporary international
relations, or guide State behavior in relation
to the past, in order to progress.
35. Ibid., vol. 6 (1912/1), p. 310.
111
’Challenging the Boundaries of 1815: Augusto Pierantoni´s (1840-1911)
Histories of International Law from the Italian Risorgimento’
(First Draft . Please do not cite or circulate)
By: Liliana Obregón 1
For the Seminar on Global History
(Nov 14, 2016 – Harvard University )
“Up to 1859 the principle of nationalities did not go beyond the domain of theory, or that of
internal affairs; the Italian war introduced it into international law. It behooves us now to
examine more closely a principle which has already caused terrible wars, and which threatens
Europe with more than one shock. 2”
John Lalor, editor of the Cyclopaedia of Political Science, 1899
Introduction
In 1866, Victor Duruy (1811-1894), a historian and France´s minister of public instruction,
made a call for all civilized peoples to present written testimonies of their nation´s progress in
science and literature to complement the following year´s Exposition Universelle in Paris. 3 Duruy
wanted the world exhibition of the arts, industry and commerce to be supported by histories of
progress in the sciences and letters so as to complete a universal order of the spiritual unity of
mankind and thus prove Giambattista Vico´s existence of a “humanity of nations.” Domenico Berti,
Duruy´s Italian counterpart, promoted the writing of these histories in his recently united nation. 4
1
Associate Professor, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá: DRCLAS and Weatherhead Fellow, Harvard University 20162017. I would like to thank the research assistance of Sergio Anzola, and the generous contribution of Luigi Nuzzo´s
work.
2 John J Lalor, 'Nationalities, Principle Of', Cyclopædia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of
the United States (Library of Economics and Liberty, 1899).
3 Société De Législation Comparée, Bulletin De La Société De Législation Comparée, 2 vols. (1: Libr. Générale de Droit et
de Jurisprudence, 1869) at 146, Luigi Ferri, Essai Sur L'histoire De La Philosophie En Italie Au Dix-Neuvieme Siecle, 2
vols. (Paris: Durand, 1869) at ii.
4 Augusto Pierantoni, Storia Degli Studi Del Diritto Internazionale in Italia (2. interamente rifatta. edn.; Firenze:
1
Most of those summoned, however, did not complete their texts and the integral project of an
Italian historical order never made it to the Paris exhibition.
Nonetheless, Duruy´s call motivated a few to write accounts that were later published as
autonomous histories written to expose the status of Italian progress in their discipline. Augusto
Pierantoni (1840-1911) a young lawyer and blossoming scholar was excited to learn that a French
state official of such high ranking, would recognize Vico, a Napolitan thinker, to support his call for
action. Pierantoni was not lacking in patriotic motivation: he belonged to Giuseppe Mazzini´s
“Young Italian” movement, had taken arms in 1860 for Giuseppe Garibaldi´s Spedizione dei Mille
and was working for and would become the son-in-law of the well-known lawyer and statesman,
Pasquale Stanislao Mancini. Pierantoni made it his purpose to contribute to new Italy´s role in the
world by undertaking the writing of an Italian history of the law of nations that would trump the
imposed boundaries of 1815 with the inherent right to nationality.
This paper hopes to contribute to the discussion on Global History by viewing the parallel
case of the construction of a united Italy through a global historical narrative that is sustained by
Mancini´s “principle of nationalities” during a period that is both background and
contemporaneous to the professionalization of international law after 1870. 5 Though many wrote
on Italian nationalism during this period, 6 I will look primarily at Augusto Pierantoni´s works of
Libraria "Fratelli Cammelli" (R. Conti), 1902) xiv, 1016 at 11.
5 M. Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law, 1870-1960, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004).
6
Anonymous, Metternich, Guizot, Luigi Filippo E Palmerston Nell'ultimo Complotto in Londra : Ossia, Gli Uncini Con Che
La Loro Lincea Politica Potrebbe Aggrapparsi Sulle Nazionalita ́ (Milano Tipografia di Claudio Wilmant, 1848) 14, Luigi
Balliano, Del Concetto Di Nazionalità Presso Gli Italiani; Orazione Detta Addì 2 Dicembre 1859 (Biella,: G. Amosso, 1860)
36, Paolo Boetti, Della Monarchia E Della Nazionalità in Italia (Torino,: S. Franco e figli e comp., 1855) xvi, 239, Franz
Champagny, Le Tre Parole, Nazionalità, Libertà, Progresso, Esaminate (Venezia: G.B. Merlo, 1860) 30, Giuseppe De
Simone, Del Principio Di Nazionalità : Come Fondamento Delle Nuove Alleanze E Dell'equilibrio Europeo, in Risposta Ad
Alcune Osservazioni Sul Capo I Del Libro La Pace Di Vienna E L'italia (Napoli: Stamperia dell'Industria, 1867) 47,
Maximin Deloche, Del Principio Delle Nazionalità (Venezia,: P. Naratovich, 1861) 111, Giacomo Durando, Della
Nazionalità Italiana; Saggio Politico-Militare (Losanna,: S. Bonamici e co., 1846) 449, P. Faldi, Il Sentimento Di
Nazionalità E Di Indipendenza Italiana Considerato Come Mezzo Efficace a Togliere Redicalmente Il Pauperismo E La
2
historical character on international law and their militant incorporation of the principal of
nationalities. 7
Constructing a History of the Risorgimento during the Risorgimento
The theory of the Risorgimento implied a re-surfacing or the rise again of an Italian nation
that existed in the past. This implication had the immediate and obvious consequence that a legal
argument for an autonomous nation had to be historically constructed. The right of Italy to be
independent was argued to come from a “natural” and “legitimate” pre-1815, past in opposition to
the imposed, artificial and “illegitimate” boundaries imposed by the Congress of Vienna. 8 It is
perhaps not a coincidence that so many Risorgimento museums, archives and libraries that surged
in the nineteenth century or early twentieth exist throughout Italy today. 9 The vindication of the
Mendicità (Bologna: J. Marsigli, 1848) 23, Giuseppe Fontana, Roma E La Nazionalità Italiana (Firenze: Tip. editrice
dell'Associazione, 1876) 22, Vincenzo Di Giovanni, La Scuola, Lo Stato E La Nazionalità Della Filosofia Italiana; Discorsi
(Firenze,: Tip. Galileiana di M. Cellini e c., 1864), Diodato Lioy, Del Principio Di Nazionalità Guardato Dal Lato Della
Storia E Del Dritto Pubblico (2a edn.; Napoli,: G.Marghieri, 1863), Luigi Minervini, Sul Presente E Sull'avvenire Dell'italia
E Della Nazionalità : Considerazioni ([Napoli]: G. Fabricatore, 1860) 23, P. P. L, Il Dritto Della Nazionalità E La Italia :
Lettera Politico-Biblica Di Un'esule Cenobita Ad Un Suo Amico Ligure (1. , edn.; [S.l.: s.n., 1859) 15, Vincenzo Pagano, Del
Diritto Della Nazionalità Italiana Con L'aggiunta Di Altri Opuscoli Politici (Napoli,: G. Rondinella, 1861), Vincenzo
Pagano, Cenno Storico Del Principio Di Nazionalità (Napoli,: D. de Pascale, 1863), Giuseppe Pisanelli, Lo Stato E La
Nazionalità; Discorso Inaugurale Alle Lezioni Di Diritto Costituzionale Letto Nella Regia Università Di Napoli Il Dì 30
Gennaio 1862 (Napoli,, 1862), Oreste Raggi, Della Lingua E Della Letteratura Italiana Considerate Relativamente Alla
Indipendenza Ed Alla Nazionalità; Discorso (Torino,: S. Franco e figli e comp., 1854), Antonio Solimani, Il Dominio
Straniero E Il Principio Delle Nazionalità : Studi Storici E Filosofici (Bologna: Tip. delle Scienze, 1859) 304, Giuseppe
Spada, Osservazioni Storiche Sulla Unità E Nazionalità Italiana (Roma: [s.n.], 1860) 38, Luigi Taparelli D'azeglio and
Vincenzo Gioberti, Della Nazionalità : Breve Scrittura (Ed. 2. / edn.; Firenze: P. Ducci, 1849) 87.
7
Pasquale Stanislao Mancini and Augusto Pierantoni, Diritto Internazionale (Roma: Unione tip. Manuzio, 1905) vii,
202, Augusto Pierantoni, Il Progresso Del Diritto Pubblico E Delle Genti: Introduzione Allo Studio Del Diritto
Costituzionale Ed Internazionale (Modena,: Tipi di Nicola Zanichelli e soci, 1866) 3 l., 162, [1], Augusto Pierantoni,
Storia Degli Studi Del Diritto Internazionale in Italia (Modena,: C. Vincenzi, 1869) xii, [13]-324, Augusto Pierantoni,
Storia Del Diritto Internazionale Nel Secolo Xix (Napoli: G. Marghieri, 1876) 665, Augusto Pierantoni, I Progressi Del
Diritto Internazionale Nel Secolo Xix (Roma: Tipografia Fratelli Pallotta, 1899) 100, Pierantoni, Storia Degli Studi Del
Diritto Internazionale in Italia
8
For this discussion see Antonio Droetto, Pasquale Stanislao Mancini E La Scuola Italiana Di Diritto Internazionale Del
Secolo Xix (Pubblicazioni Dell'istituto Di Filosofia Del Diritto Dell'università Di Roma, 33; Milano: A. Giuffrè, 1954) 404
at 4
9
Italy holds more than twenty Risorgimento institutions with only the one in Torino claiming to be “national”: among
others see Museo Civico del Risorgimento di Bologna, Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento Italiano di Torino, Museo del
Risorgimento di Milano, Biblioteca e Archivio del Risorgimento di Firenze, Museo del Risorgimento Di Ravenna,
Istituto per la storia del Risorgimento italiano di Roma, Museo Civico del Risorgimento di Modenna, Museo del
Risorgimento e Resistenza di Vicenza
3
nation rights rested on the ordering of a factual (and physical) archive and site of memory.
Now the second maneuver was a conceptual one: “nation” had to be distinguished from
“state” as had been in the Congress of Vienna where the “principle of legitimacy” and the “balance
of power” favored the pre-Napoleonic states of Austria, Great Britain, Prussia and Russia. The
Treaty of Vienna restored Austrian domination in the North and Italy was to be divided into seven
territories: 1): the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia 2) Lombardy-Venetia 3) the Papal States 4) the
Two Sicilies 5) the Duchy of Parma 6) the Duchy of Modena and 7) the Duchy of Tuscany. The
Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia was under the leadership of the House of Savoy; the regions of
Lombardy and Venetia were incorporated into the Austrian empire; the Papal States were
controlled by Pius IX , and the Bourbons directed the Two Sicilies. At this time, unification seemed
impossible in view of the huge heterogeneity 10 and Metternich famously regarded her as only "a
geographical expression." 11 Indeed, Italy would need three wars of independence to become
unified but Antonio Droetto remarks that this is the moment when the era of the Risorgimento
began political insurrection and legal rebellion against the conception of the State in favor of a
new natural idea of the Nation so that the Italian people could control the territory that theirs
before Vienna. 12
From Politics to Law – The Principle of Nationality from Mazzini to Mancini13
10
11
12
Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872) is well known for instigating the principle of nationality
(Foreman-Peck, 2005)
(Metternich, 1847).
Droetto, Pasquale Stanislao Mancini E La Scuola Italiana Di Diritto Internazionale Del Secolo Xix at 2
13 This subtitle is a take on Luigi Nuzzo´s title for his acute study on Mazzini and Mancini as promoters of
the principle of nationality in the realm of politics and law See Luigi Nuzzo, 'Da Mazzini a Mancini. Il
Principio Di Nazionalità Tra Politica E Diritto', Giornale di storia costituzionale, 14/2 (2007a), 161-86.
4
through the many uprisings, rebellions, secret societies and newspapers that he built and
promoted in an effort to liberate Italy. He exposed the universal principles of freedom and equality
as political argument for national liberation but also viewed this as the way to reach the final goal
of “a cosmopolitanism of nations.” For Mazzini “the nation was a necessary intermediary step in
the progressive association of mankind, the means toward a future international “brotherhood”
among all peoples” and the possibility of a “United States of Europe.” 14
Parallel to Mazzini, Pasquale Stanislao Mancini set forth the legal counterpart of the
“principle of nationality” to challenge the state-centric vision of Vienna. This principle´s force, like
for Mazzini, resided in its argument of universality, an interpretation taken from G.B. Vico´s
eighteenth century new “science of nations” and his universal principle of law, recognized as the
real capostipite of the Italian school of international law. 15
Mancini was a tour de force in Naples, where in the 1840´s he owned a newspaper,
participated in all cultural activities and began an Italian school of law in his own home in order to
build the "new science of the nation" to teach law around the "happy conjunction of philosophy
and history" and the objective of "civilization and progress.” 16 When the revolutions of 1848 hit
Naples, Mancini had to flee to Turin where he continued to actively promote unification with other
exiles. In 1851 he published Della Nazionalitá come Fondamento del Diritto delle Genti (Of
Nationality as the Foundation of the Law of Nations) as a reinterpretation of Giambattista Vico´s
Mondo della Nazione (World of Nations) or in Mancini´s words: "as the celebration of humanity
14
Stefano Recchia and Nadia Urbinati, 'Introduction: Giuseppe Mazzini's International Political Thought ', in Stefano
Recchia and Nadia Urbinati (eds.), A Cosmopolitanism of Nations: Giuseppe Mazzini's Writings on Democracy, Nation
Building, and International Relations (Princeton University Press, 2009) at 2
15
Droetto, Pasquale Stanislao Mancini E La Scuola Italiana Di Diritto Internazionale Del Secolo Xix at 377. citing
Giambattista Vico, De Universi Juris Uno Principio, Et Fine Uno (Napoli: Felix Musca, 1720) 2 v. in 1, Giambattista Vico,
Principi Di Una Scienza Nuova Intorno Alla Natura Della Nazioni Per La Quale Si Ritruovano I Principi Di Altro Sistema
Del Diritto Naturale Delle Genti (Napoli: Per Felice Mosca, 1725) 270, [12].
16 Maria Malatesta, Society and the Professions in Italy, 1860-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
97-99.
5
and its civil progress in the free, harmonious and full development of nationalities.” 17
Mancini made a parallel between the family and the nation as both were part of a natural
and necessary constitution of humanity and perpetual forms of human association. The family was
the place where an individual acquired his first knowledge and feelings of love for the land and his
kin. 18 While constant properties and facts also defined nations such as region, race, language,
customs, history, law and religion these elements called for a more intimate community of law,
originated from a natural necessity. 19 The determining and vital element of Mancini´s proposal,
however, was the consciousness of nationality, which would be constituted inside and outside of
that force. 20
The right to nationality for Mancini was also a collective manifestation of the right and duty
to freedom. Consequently, individuals who went “against nationality” also killed freedom: “the
only solid base on which all of the social order relies” making it so that “whoever falls from that
path perturbs the moral order” and the “harmonious and progressive development of the human
family.” 21 This view of nationality allowed less for criticism and gave it the authoritarian bent that
became so dangerous in the future.
Internationally, for Mancini, the principle or right to nationality was the root of all other
people´s rights and all international rights: the elemental unit, the rational limit, the object and
matter or the monad of the “science of nations.” As a principle of international law, Mancini´s
proposal came into direct opposition with the idea of social contract that supported the traditional
cited in James Summers, Peoples and International Law: How Nationalism and Self-Determination Shape a
Contemporary Law of Nations, vol. 8, The Erik Castrén Institute Monographs on International Law and Human Rights
(Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2007). 113.
18 Pasquale Stanislao Mancini, 'Sobre La Nacionalidad ', in Antonio E. Pérez Luño (ed.), Pasquale Stanislao Mancini –
Sobre La Nacionalidad (Madrid, 1985 (1851)) at 25.
19 Ibid., at 27.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid., at 34.
17 As
6
view, as in Grotius or Vattel, of the State as subject. For Mancini, all governments should express
and represent the nation first and foremost, because a State that does not represent the nation
would end up holding people “as slaves.” 22 As a corollary, nations were viewed as constituted from
within their territory, therefore they must also be sovereign over it without foreign interference.
Mancini did not oppose positivism per se but he argued that any treaty must have as a
rational limit “the right of each nationality”, and that this was also the boundary between
nationalities. Thus the utopian end for Mancini´s nationalities was a law of nations as understood
in Vico´s view of “the celebration of humanity and its progress in the free harmonious and
complete development of nationalities.” 23
Though immediately attractive and inspiring to many Italians, 24 Mancini´s “principle of
nationality” was never formally incorporated into the language of international law. 25 It was
critiqued as a theory that could not be applicable outside of Italy because of its weak scientific
structure and its dangerous ambiguity, and the evident problems that would surface when many
nationalities were present in the same territory. 26 The principle of nationality was the subject of
suspicion and objections by many writers and Statesmen who believed it to be the negation of
humanity and the triumph of national egoism though Mancini considered the nationality and
humanity as necessary to each other. 27
22
Ibid., at 44
Ibid.
24 Angelo Piero Sereni, The Italian Conception of International Law (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943) xi,
402 p. at 166.
25 Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations : The Rise and Fall of International Law, 1870-1960 (Cambridge,
UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002) xiv, 569 p. at 63.
26 Nathaniel Berman, Passion and Ambivalence : Colonialism, Nationalism, and International Law (Legal History Library,
6; Leiden ; Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2012) 460 at 126, Luigi Nuzzo, 'Da Mazzini a Mancini: Il Principio Di
Nazionalitá Tra Politica E Diritto', Giornale di storia costituzionale, 14 (2007b), 161-86 at 172, Sereni, The Italian
Conception of International Law at 167. all citing Guido Padelleti´s critique of the principle of nationalities for its
uselessness to resolve international conflicts because of its Italian nationalist origins.{Padelletti, 1871 #11711}
27 Augusto Pierantoni, Trattato Di Diritto Internazionale - Volumen 1 Prolegomeni Storia Dell Antichitá Al 1400, 3 vols.
(1; Roma: Forzani E.C. Tipografi del Senato, 1881) 776.v-vi
23
7
Pierantoni´s Historical Turn
The historiography of the idea of nationalism and of the experiences of national
movements are generally presented at the international level as teleological, prioritizing
one national history over others, and treating the State as predestined. 28 Giovanni Levi
argues that while the foundation of Rome and the Roman Empire is used among Western
European Nations as the myth of civilization in terms of their national status in the world
“Italy has no founding myths, moments or episodes that can be used in effective nationbuilding” and the Risorgimento was in reality just another civil war. 29
But nothing could have been farther for the truth for Mancini and his lesser-known
son-in-law Augusto Pierantoni, the only Italians participating at the 1873 foundational
meeting of the Institute de Droit International (IDI). 30 Both born in small towns in the south
of Italy (Mancini in Castel Baronia 1817, Pierantoni in Chieti in 1840) they had lived the
process of migration to northern Turin and later settled in Naples while moving to Rome as
capital of the new Italy, as part of their lived experience of the cause of Italian unification.
The young Pierantoni had joined Garibaldean forces in 1856 and again in 1860 with
the definitive "Spedizione dei Mille", the final battle for the unification of the south with the
north of Italy. Soon thereafter, Pierantoni met Mancini and began a life-long personal and
work relation with him. In 1865 Pierantoni became professor of constitutional law and
Stuart Wolff, 'Prologue', L'unificazione Italiana E La Grande Idea : Ideologia E Azione Dei Movimenti Nazionali in
Italia E in Grecia : 1859-1871 (italiana ampliata. edn., Biblioteca Di Cultura Neogreca, 3; Firenze: Aletheia, 1995), 228 p.
at 6.
29 {Levi, 2012 #11679@267}
30 This meeting was described as foundational for modern international law in Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle
Civilizer of Nations : the Rise and Fall of International Law, 1870-1960 (Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2002) 42.
28
8
international law at the University of Modena and married Mancini´s daughter, Grazia, in
1868.
A year later, Pierantoni wrote his first history on the origins and progress of
international law in Italy. In 1870 he became professor of constitutional law in Naples and
in 1873 he was invited to the foundational meeting of the Institute de Droit International.
Three years later, while beginning his new post as professor of international law in Rome, he
wrote a history of international law of his own century, a nearly 700 page text that
described political events from the Congress of Vienna of 1815 to the Centennial
International Exhibition of 1876 held in Philadelphia.
Pierantoni took Mancini´s principle of nationalities and devotion to history further by
writing historical works focused on the newly united Italy as well as on the profound
transformations that nineteenth century had to Europe´s international order. Pierantoni´s
construction of the history of international law in Italy (1869) and in the nineteenth century
(1876) was imbedded with his view of the Risorgimento. On the other hand, his narrative
highlighted continuities and progress in European international law through conceptual
pairs: the transitions from the doctrine of intervention to the doctrine of non-intervention;
from the Holy Alliance to the representative form of government; from treaties imposed by
force to agreements negotiated through politics; from the balance of powers to the juridical
equality of states. Though Pierantoni viewed Europe´s past in the negative light of how it
divided Italy, his vision for the future was optimistic as he anticipated new interests in
economics and communications that would spread law and justice throughout the world
and build a new international law.
Pierantoni´s work was devoted to building the historical structure to the “principle of
nationality” for Italy first and then for the rest of the “civilized world.” Historical writing was
9
essential to the project of ordering a new nation and placing it in the growing cosmopolitan
and commercial world through the new discipline of international law. 31 In 1902, Pierantoni
explained the relation between history and international law in a new preface to the second
edition of his 1867 Storia degli Studi del Diritto Internazionale in Italia:
“law and history of law are two ideas that are inseparable because in the contrast between two
generations dominated by the passion against the enemy, the tenacious of the past and the
desirous of the future, history shifts from an instructive narrative to the job of judge and
advisor of prudence indicating the reasons for the contrast and hopefully the remedy. This job
of scientific history is accomplished with greater reason in the study of the law of
nations….because this law of nations known as the wonder of humanity (maraviglia
dell´umanità) has as a mission to impose its law not on individuals but on nations, and not over
peace, but on war.” 32
At the end of the century, Pierantoni viewed the progress of international law as how
force had reduced its empire and that “reason and justice opened a very wide gap from the
“homeland (patria) to humanity” and from “the life of the State to the world of nations. 33” He
argued for the necessary principle ie, “the organic constitution of humanity” through the
coexistence of Nations and States in the law is the fundamental principle of this science and
the principle of nationality as the greatest evolution in the life of a people.” 34
Pierantoni wrote on the history of international law of Italy and the nineteenth
century during the period of unification and the new Republic in direct relation to the three
stages of Italian resurgence. Pierantoni purposely constructed a linear narrative of Italian
thinkers on the law of nations while he placed Italy as a unified nation in the academic and
political center of the expanding world map of legal relations among states. The principle of
nationality was essential to the idea of public international law as well as private
31
32
33
34
Pierantoni, Storia Degli Studi Del Diritto Internazionale in Italia at v.
Pierantoni, I Progressi Del Diritto Internazionale Nel Secolo Xix.
Pierantoni, Storia Degli Studi Del Diritto Internazionale in Italia
10
international law and the essence of an Italian school of international law .
Pierantoni argued that Italian jurists formed a unique corpus of the science of
international law by first gathering dispersed elements in the usage of the people and the law
of Rome. In their third or “terzo Risorgimento” they should have codified international
thought in order for other nations to imitate, but mainly for Italians to become reacquainted
with their original sources in international scholarship and avoid “servile imitation” and
increase the glory of the Italian nation.
In 1867, the first edition of Pierantoni´s Studio was written with the consciousness of
a new nation that needed to recover the lost customs and the “natural vocation for study and
work” that Italians had. Independence must be reached not only in the political sphere,
argued Pierantoni, but everywhere where foreign powers are present. Focus must be made
on works that show the Italian genius and the vales for a new generation. Restoration must
also apply the lost knowledge to civil and scientific institutions in order to reinvigorate the
love for this discipline and to “discount the fatal persuasion that we are good for nothing and
we should learn everything from foreigners.” 35 36
Tensions of the Principle of Nationality, the Historical Narrative and its International Scope
The principle of nationality and the use of historical narrative conjures up several tensions
defined in conceptual pairs as: “center/periphery and national/local relationships; the schism
between parliament and civil society; the modernity versus tradition dynamic; and the question of
35
Ibid., at v
11
inclusion and in, and exclusion from, the body politic.” 37
In a more advanced version of this chapter, I wish to discuss related or additional tensions
of Mancini´s principle of nationality in relation to Pierantoni´s history and their consequences of
1) Colonialism: Italian and European colonial projects and Mancini´s role in promoting them (why
don´t non-European peoples have the right to nationality? In the view of Pierantoni, are non-
Europeans devoid of history, therefore devoid of nationhood?) 2) Emigration: If the principle of
nationality was so ingrained in the consciousness of the Italian people, why would so many
Italians emigrate after unification? 3) Fascism: was the dark side of the principle of nationality and
its historical construction, fascism?
¨
Mahnaz Yousefzadeh, City and Nation in the Italian Unification: The National Festivals of Dante Alighieri (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) at 161.
37
12
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14